PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 47 



give every promise of also being able to do so. A very 

 seriously abnormal trade depression, which would render 

 it difficult for the trainees to complete their training with 

 employers, would retard the completion of the scheme, and 

 indeed might permanently impair it, but apart from this 

 danger, there is no reason to doubt the final and complete 

 success of the scheme. 



Such is a brief account of what has been done by the 

 Commonwealth Repatriation Department in training and 

 retraining those men of the Australian Imperial Forces 

 who returned without a calling to go to, through having 

 enlisted when very young, or who, through having been 

 injured, were unable to return to their pre-war occupations. 

 In describing what has been done in designing and carry- 

 ing out a system of training to meet the special needs of 

 these classes of returned men, no opportunity has been lost 

 of noting observations and mentioning conclusions made 

 during the working out of this remarkable effort in educa- 

 tion. This has been done, as already mentioned, with a 

 view to assisting in the solution of the problem of properly 

 providing always for the necessary proportion of competent 

 workers for each of the callings carried on in the country. 

 As the observations and conclusions arrived at have been 

 referred to in a discoursive way, it may perhaps be advis- 

 able to summarise them as follows: — 



(1) The experience gained iu working out the scheme 

 went to show that it is necessary to have advice and 

 assistance from experienced practitioners or workers 

 in a calling when designing and carrying out training 

 for that calling. 



(2) That it is possible, provided suitable statistics and 

 expert professional or trade advice are available, to 

 make allotments of trainees for any calling so as to 

 provide with reasonable certainty that the needs of 

 that calling will be met, even at a time sufficiently 

 ahead to allow of the necessary training being given. 



